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Re: Floc nightmare help!!

Welcome to TFP!

With floc'ing, you have to turn the pump off and let everything settle to the bottom of the pool. Then set vacuum to waste and carefully remove everything that has settled to the bottom. You may need to add water to the pool first since vacuum-to-waste will remove water quickly.

Please let us know more details about your pool including the type of filter you have.

Re: Floc nightmare help!!

Hi guys sorry new to all this. I have an Inground vinyl lined pool circa 12000 gallons totally abused by previous house owner. Pool was fine last year, this year couldn't maintain chemical balance constantly going green and sand is due to be changed in filter this week. I have a lacron 24" filter ??

Any way after having loads of problems was advised to shock then flock. I filled pool high, shocked then flocked once he shock had taken effect. Never used flock before, added amount pool store said, left filter off until everything was at the bottom of the pool around 48 hours. Vacked to waste yesterday and could see that this would have to be done twice as there was a minimal amount that had been disturbed by vaccing. Did have to put more water in pool, and left it all to settle again. Anyway my vacced again to waste today (my father in law did it this time rather than me so not 100% sure he didn't disturb it too much) all appeared clear with just tiny particles you could see remaining in the water.

Looked very minimal so put this fine net thing I have over skimmer basket and turner filter on (sands being changed tommortow or was meant to be) so I didn't worry to much if what looked like a tiny bit of floc ended up in the filter.

Gone out here tonight and there's quite a lot of the flocking stuff on the bottom of the pool again.

It's not the easiest pool to maintain as last house owner didn't maintain very well (as soon as she sold house To us she turned everything off put he cover on and cancelled her maintenance contract pool was shut down for 8 months) and he vinyl lining is quite ridged

Not sure if I can attach pics but will try and upload pics of my equipment

Re: Floc nightmare help!!

Re: Floc nightmare help!!

Clarifier and flocculent can work, but they can also be a royal pain. Clarifier seems to work better than floc. The issue with floc is that it's meant to settle particles in the water to the bottom, and to do that the water has to be still. The issue with that is that as soon as you start the pump to vacuum, it's not still anymore and the settlement gets stirred up so then you have to repeat the process of letting it settle, then vacuum, and it invariably takes several rotations of settle then vacuum to get most of it out.

P.S. It may be too late now, but except for a very few specific situations, the sand never needs changing.